Music

City and Colour

Life after post-hardcore

By Carey Ross

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Dallas Green looks like a rock musician. There’s no getting around it. To put a finer point on it, what with his many tattoos combined with an overall clean-cut sensibility, he looks like a certain breed of post-hardcore musician.

That is, of course, what he is. At least, it’s what he was.

Before Green adopted the moniker City and Colour, he was a founding member of Canadian post-hardcore band Alexisonfire. They described their music as the “sound of two Catholic high-school…

Outdoors

Grand Larchery

A quest for autumnal art

Story and photo by John D'Onofrio

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

As September unfurls its autumnal colors, my thoughts turn to the realm of the magnificent larch forests, high on the eastern slopes of the North Cascades. Actually, forest is too strong a word. Larches gather in “stands,” not forests. The high country they inhabit cannot support forests. These scattered stands are made even more beautiful by their aesthetic placement, each tree a work of standalone autumn art.

Food

SeaFeast

Get an edible education

By Amy Kepferle

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

If you’re under the impression the second annual Bellingham SeaFeast is all about the food, you’re only only partially correct.

While it’s true the two-day event offers myriad ways for people to sate their appetites via the ingestion of locally and regionally sourced seafood, the gustatory gatherings taking place Sept. 22-23 by the waterfront and in the downtown core are also bracketed by a number of happenings that pay homage to the hardworking humans involved in the maritime and…

Visual

Sew Excited

A time for textiles

By Amy Kepferle

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Ever since I attempted to make a flannel nightgown as part of a home economics class in junior high school, I’ve been in awe of people who can sew.

While my finished frock looked like something someone in a mental institution might wear instead of a straitjacket—one arm was approximately four inches shorter than the other one, and the longer limb’s elastic wristband was almost cinched too tight to allow a hand to fit through—other students created attractive, wearable works that…

Film

The Midwife

Catherines the Great

Reviewed by Jordan Mintzer

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

The French-language title of director Martin Provost’s latest femme-centric drama is Sage Femme, a term that technically means midwife, as in the medical profession, but also literally describes a “well-behaved woman.” The double meaning is particularly apt when applied to the film’s heroine, Claire—a single mom in her 50s whose spick-and-span life is thrown amuck by the arrival of Beatrice, a woman who is Claire’s polar opposite in every way, but who could possibly change her…

Words

The Last Ballad

Finding the courage to create change

Reviewed by Lisa Gresham

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Working the night shift six nights a week to support her four kids (with another on the way), Ella May Wiggins is tired, and desperate, and her $9-a-week paycheck barely keeps enough food on the table.

Her oldest daughter, Lilly, takes care of the younger children while Ella is at work. When three-year-old Rose gets a cough and high fever, Ella stays home to care for her, losing pay and falling further behind. She has lost a child before, though, and cannot bear to lose another…

News

Border Imperialism

Day of Peace observes those displaced by war

By Tim Johnson

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

“Peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
― —Martin Luther King Jr.

As almost 400,000 refugees flee ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, world leaders at the United Nation’s General Assembly this week acknowledged that they have not only failed on promises to take in more refugees, but refugee rights have been dismantled in many parts of the world.

The UN marked the International Day of Peace with the annual ringing of the peace bell and calls for…

On Stage

Return Engagement

Back to the basics with Paula Poundstone

By Amy Kepferle

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Many years ago, during an early morning telephone interview with Paula Poundstone, the standup star fell asleep on me, and I retaliated by subtitling my story something along the lines of “famous comedian gives local reporter the nod.”

We’ve both grown up a lot since then. In the intervening years, I’ve learned what to do when a celebrity snores during a prearranged verbal volley (hang up immediately and make plans to call back later instead of waiting on the line like a dolt for 20…